1
I have given up everything I wanted to do
she said
but my children are successful and
independent

2
only this morning, she was working with volatile solvents
a constant layer beneath shimmers

3
I presumed, she said
to demand a room change; I wanted something
more monastic
the room they gave me was huge
too airy

4
nails pierce the wood foundation of a new barn
pine in the air, hush of a river

porch boards squeak, warp
rock in my stomach

Number 2: Landscape

GREEN GOLD BROWN BLACK

1
ferns curled
mud pit
aluminum cans along the road, shards
stones are always the color
of nearby water
she collects these
on the top of her dresser
and pears, apples, tea bags, straws,
forks, napkins, and a set of colanders
stolen from the kitchen

2
Maybe this is where rivers began
maybe this is
a footprint

3
what is wrong, she said, are those people
who think they know where they are

4
in the morning I get up and make the coffee
which I cannot drink–and
the oatmeal in a great aluminum institutional pot

someone leaves bread in the toaster
which burns
this is somehow my fault

Number 3: Glenn Gould in the Attic

BLUE COBALT BLUE ULTRAMARINE TURQUOISE

1
she wants to hit the walls with a crow bar
pull away plaster, lath, or drywall
pull out the electrical guts
attempt to obliterate sky

2
it is the shadow of hundred year old trees we yearn for
how can we imagine without such shade?
I melt wax against pigment

3
again, she tells the story about her children
with manufactured tears
she has taught me to disregard habit
to desire a building
which houses theater
I too become consumed with gestures

4
it's a rock and falling upon us
we bleed

oh give it up, he says,
let's sing

edge hard on the road-side ruts from
having spent too long watching–

casualties and focus, we spend
our time drawing an outline

Number 4: The Perfect Gray

ALIZARIN CRIMSON GRAY AQUAMARINE PAPER

1
you have gotten mixed up
this paint box, and nothing to breathe but turpentine
sea echoes, mussels, grit between ear bones
musk oil, rosin

3
we want to see you in your blue dress
in your shimmering blue dress, eating camembert
the aquamarine
bright goddess of silver thread
slithering memory, a pleasing fungus beetle
or green stink
preserved in a specimen bottle

4
had we had discovered a starfish?
every day we were drowning conch
in the porcelain sink
for their shells

Number 5: Thwarted Expressionisms

TIGERED EBONY MIDNIGHT BLUE OFF-WHITE

1
locals threw her out of the bar–
'because I was so obnoxious
there is no place for me anywhere'
While I thought that I was learning how to live
I have been learning how to die: Leonardo Da Vinci

2
she gives her paper on Pollock
she writes poems on Pollock
she tells us Pollock once told her a secret
bruised his ankle on a stone lantern
stayed all evening at her house–'O'
when will we dance?

3
'the sea is a charmer'; 'Lost her charms'
'Red tide manatees' without their digestion
dance of the intestines 'they cut her colon
re-sewing segments' each to each

4
she grips a blue pebble in his fist
which she will remember again
when she is eighty
watching the waves lick the beach
gripping a pebble, she knows finally
what it is to be six years old
she opens her palm, stares
flings it out toward the silvered horizon
she knows
what it is to be eighty

Number 6: The Awesome Reptilian

MAGNETA MOTHER OF PEARL AMETHYST FLEUR DE LYS

1
tiny bones of rodents, a bird's beak
what we swallow
why do we name Jonah and not the whale?
the snake that's swallowed the fetus?

2
If the snakewoman
came down to earth and wove
a cloth of meteors, re-glued statuary, wings
if we covered Mars in candles

3
dead creatures are always encased in tears
but not enough, she says, so they dehydrate

I try to remember orchids
what hue was her childhood?

4
Even her gestures have made an impression
here in the grain of the paper, in the layers
of red, yellow becoming orange